


the most human color

by notavodkashot



Series: love stories from the end of times [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Feels, M/M, Multi, Random shenanigans that happen during or around the main fic, all the feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-26 02:32:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 37
Words: 12,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13226307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notavodkashot/pseuds/notavodkashot
Summary: A collection of short fics from my tumblr prompt drives, all set withinthe bittersweet yearningcontinuity.





	1. someone has lost the keys to the Regalia

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm putting all my short fics in one place. I'm including the prompt for each of them.
> 
> These are canon to the main fic, unless otherwise stated in the notes, and probably don't make sense if you haven't read that one.

“…Ignis?” Noctis asked, after perhaps half a minute of awkwardly standing around the car.

“Yes?”

“Uh,” Noct nodded at the Regalia. “You… gonna let us in or what?”

Ignis blinked at him, then frowned.

“You have the keys,” he pointed out, one eyebrow arched. “You drove us here, remember?”

“ _I_  do,” Gladio muttered a little darkly, “Garula crossing, remember?”

“You know,” Prompto snorted, “they somehow seem bigger when they’re running at us in the car, than when  _we_ ’re running at them, in the field.”

Noct was still staring at Ignis.

“Uh,” he repeated, and then very slowly began to pat his pants. “Oh, fuck.”

“You didn’t,” Gladio deadpanned, just as Prompto choked on a laugh.

“Noct,” Ignis said warningly, as Noct gave up pretenses and began digging desperately into his pockets. “Oh, Astrals grant me patience.”

Noct’s pockets yielded two packets of gum, a folded up mat from their last visit to the Crow’s nest, a bunch of shiny river stones, four lures, six rolls of reels, and his wallet. But no keys. Noct stared at his hands as a terrible thought occurred to him as he remembered they’d been ambushed by spiracorns the moment they stepped out of the car.

“Oh,  _fuck_ ,” he groaned, as he began to summon things from within the armiger, “hang on.”

Gladio sighed loudly.

“This is gonna take a while, isn’t it?”


	2. How about noct giving either or both of the guys a "if you hurt my best friend, I am disowning your ass/es" talk. Once he's more awake. And less mortified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would only happen if Noct found out about the Gladio/Ignis/Prompto situation until after they reach Altissia. This is also the reason why he finds out so early on in the bittersweet yearning. It would be cringe-ly painful. I’m going more for a slow realization of how fucked up things are, not out right punching people in the mouth with pain, here. :P (So, no, Noct is not taking back his tentative, mostly awkward “…well, okay, if you’re SURE” reaction. Even when he wakes up fully. He’s… a bit weirded out, but he still trusts his friends to know what they’re doing. Mostly Ignis, to be honest.)
> 
> Gladio is a dick, sometimes. Noctis makes it worse. OTL

“The hell you think you’re doing?” Noctis snarled at Gladio, the first flare of emotion that wasn’t crushing despair he’d seen in the King’s face since the Hydraean’s Trial.

Gladio took a moment to feel depressed at the fact he was glad for it, before his annoyance overcame him.

“Eating,” he deadpanned, raising his fork mockingly. “Your Majesty should certainly try it, sometime,” he added, voice dripping sarcasm.

“I saw you,” Noctis said, voice gone cold with fury, “and Prompto,” he adds, glaring murder. “ _Outside Ignis’ door_.”

Gladio stared blankly for a moment there, not quite sure was the big, significant revelation about that, until he remembered Prompto had started to think into a self-doubt rut and he’d chosen to break him out of it the fastest way he knew how… Ah, he thought, pursing his lips into a thin line. Well, shit. No turning back, now.

“That’s-”

“You’re so fucking high and mighty,” Noctis snarls, eyes dark, “but the moment things get rough with Ignis, you go-”

Gladio reached a hand to grab a fistful of Noctis’ shirt and then pulled until they were nose to nose.

“Shut,  _the fuck_ , up,” he requested politely, teeth bared and eyes narrowed, “about my relationship with Ignis,” and after a moment, added, “ _and_ my relationship with Prompto. We’ve got enough shit to deal with on our own, to add a little kid throwing opinions about, like he knows what the fuck he’s talking about.”

He shoved Noctis away, scowling viciously.

“Prompto’s my best friend-” Noctis began, like it meant shit in the large scale of things, and once upon a time, Gladio would have thought so, but once upon a time, Ignis wasn’t blind and Prompto wasn’t falling to pieces faster than Gladio could put them back in place.

“Do you want a fucking medal for it?” He snorted. “Some best friend you are, we’ve been  _together_ since the grotto, all three of us, and you never even noticed. Guess your best friend didn’t feel like he could  _tell_ you that, huh?”

There was a moment of silence as Noctis tried his best to handle the implications behind those words. Gladio regretted them already, but they were out, and he couldn’t take them back. Wouldn’t.

“If you hurt him,” Noctis said, quiet and vicious, “either of them, if you hurt them, I will kill you.” He made sure he was holding Gladio’s eyes as he spoke, fists clenched at his sides. “I will kill you the only way I know how, I’ll  _disown_ you.”

Gladio froze, the threat cutting clear and painful all the way to his core. Then he snarled, standing up over his King with his own brand of rage boiling in his gut.

“Don’t worry, your Majesty, I ain’t going anywhere,” he said, voice taunting. “None of us are, since we’re following your lead.”

Noctis stormed off without a word.


	3. They've been friends long enough that Noct's got lots of little things he can tease Prompto about, but he threatens to tell Gladio where Prom is most ticklish most often.

“And would you look at that,” Prompto said smugly, “looks like that new lure’s gonna have to wait, eh, Noct?”

Noct scowled furiously at his cards and threw Prompto a dirty look in return for his little smirk. Prompto, flushed with triumph, snuggled up Gladio’s side. Gladio made a small humming noise and shifted so he could wrap an arm around him, not taking his eyes off the chess board, where he was trying his darn hardest to survive Ignis’ best attempts to slaughter him.

“Prompto,” Ignis said quietly, fingering a knight, “don’t gloat, it’s unbecoming to make the King act two years old.”

Noctis’ scowl darkened.

“Oh yeah?” He asked, “would a two year old do this?”

And then he lunged at Prompto, laughing as his fingers wiggled threateningly. Prompto shrieked and made to kick him, scrambling away. Gladio and Ignis shared a sigh and didn’t really react, until Prompto made a loud, high pitched sound and the commotion came to a sudden stop. They looked up to find Prompto with his hands covering his mouth, and Noctis sitting on him, diabolical look on his face.

“What the hell?” Gladio asked, blinking.

“Oh, you don’t know-” Noctis began, and then laughed when Prompto shoved his hands over his mouth.

“Shut up!”

Then they were off again, roughhousing around camp, with the occasional shrieked threat for spice.

“Checkmate,” Ignis murmured, utterly unfazed, and smirked when Gladio’s face fell into a frown.

“Damn.”


	4. While Gladios still learning to love the prince, he and his dad switch places for day?

Regis studied the boy and felt like a terrible person, because there was a wholly meanspirited joke to be had, about a night of truly astoundingly endless drinking some twenty years ago, where upon Clarus and Cor had ended up one of their usual spats on the floor in a very different way than they usually did. But Regis had sworn he’d never speak of it again, and he knew Cor and Clarus would certainly never speak of it again. Clarus loved only his wife. Cor loved only his coffee. Regis knew this, indeed, but the boy had such an intense, dutiful stare to him that if his eyes were blue rather than amber, Regis would be slightly less unnerved.

“You needn’t stand there all day,” Regis told him, as gently and kindly as he could, but got only a frown for his trouble. “Come, now, Gladiolus, take a seat. Discussing policy is hard enough on one’s back.”

The boy shrugged slowly, carefully, as if his spine was stiff and had forgotten anything but being ramrod straight.

“I prefer to stand, Your Majesty,” he said, “but if it bothers you-”

Regis sighed.

“Not at all, not at all,” he said, waving a hand placatingly. “Shall we start then?”

Clarus’ son nodded Cor’s sharp, forceful nod, and set his jaw as if preparing to fight a horde of daemons, rather than just the mountains of paperwork Regis needed to get through that morning.

* * *

Gladio’s dad was… so weird. He just… he  _smiled_ so much, Noctis thought a bit despondently. And they were smiles, too, not the cocky, taunting smirks that Gladio would throw back at him, along with his ass on a silver platter. Like he was enjoying himself, for real.

“I think I’m beat,” Noctis said, dismissing the sword in his hand to ruffle his hair, though the strands were soaked in sweat.

“Come now, Your Highness,” Clarus told him, looming above him with that same fond smile of his, not even the slightest bit wounded. “Surely you can indulge in one last bout? You nearly had me there, for a moment.”

Noctis knew he had done no such thing. He was hopeless in a fight against Gladio - a serious fight, not just a spar to get him used to new moves - and there was no way Clarus wasn’t ten times better than his son,  _at least_. But then he kept  _smiling_. And Noct kept twitching. And the next thing he knew it’d been two hours and every muscle in his body was screaming at him to  _stop_.

“What are your plans for the evening, Your Highness?” Clarus asked him, in that borderline cheerful tone of his, all pleasant and pleased and  _weird_.

Noctis considered telling him he wanted a shower and maybe a four hour nap. But then he got caught on that smile and the next thing he knew they were sitting in his apartment, looking over the stack of digests that Ignis had left for him. And Noctis couldn’t just bow his head and pretend he was reading while he took a quick nap, either, because Clarus kept asking him questions about policy and regulations and ruling and…

Noctis sighed, the day couldn’t end quickly enough.

* * *

“Your dad is so  _weird_ ,” Gladio and Noctis blurted at each other, the next day as their sparring lulled into a small pause.

There was a moment of quiet between them, a thoughtful, careful pause, as they measured each other.

Then they broke down laughing, the honest kind that didn’t have anything snide snarled into it, and sat down to compare impressions on the previous day.

Maybe… maybe they weren’t so ill-suited for each other, after all.


	5. a deleted scene from bittersweet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, full disclosure, I don’t edit my fic. Like, at all. What you see is what you get. It goes from word to clean HTML to AO3. I fix the stray typo here and there, and sometimes fix a repetitive phrase, when it’s pointed out to me. But that’s it. I don’t have spoons for anything else, and hey, it’s fic. It’s for fun, right? So there’s not much in the way of deleted scenes in my fics, because I’m literally bullshitting my way as I go along.
> 
> THAT SAID, there IS however, a deleted scene for the bittersweet yearning. It’s one of the very rare times I’ve actually scrapped and rewritten something, and the reason for it is that while the banter that inspired it is hilarious, since we’re following along Prompto’s POV, that just makes it heartbreaking. And that kind of… tanked the mood of the entire chapter. So it had to go. But here it is, just for you, anon:

“Wow,” Prompto said, staring a little at the lights on the pier and the warm, orange glow as the sun began to set, reflected on the waves. “This place is so romantic…”

He’d not meant to say it out loud, and he regretted the words as he heard Gladio snort. His face burned as Gladio dropped an arm on his shoulder, scar twitching as he smirked at him.

“And you get to enjoy it with us,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows for emphasis.

Prompto tried to squirm from under the hold but only ended up running into Noctis, who threw his arm over Gladio’s, from the other side, and grinned at him.

“All three of us…” He said, smirk teasing as he leaned in to deliver the line, entirely too much into Prompto’s personal space for his tastes.

Prompto looked over at Ignis, face flushed, hoping for some respite. Ignis pushed his glasses up his nose just so, and smiled at him. One of his nice smiles, the one that made Prompto’s stomach tie itself up into knots.

“You are a lucky man,” he said, voice low and smooth, like a caress.

Then they laughed, and if it took Prompto a moment to join them, if he didn’t really think the joke was funny, well.

No one noticed, anyway.

They never did.


	6. If so - Gladio and Ignis from The Bittersweet Yearning either first discussing the possibility of the addition of Prompto, or their side of noticing this poor, struggling young man?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a full fic in the works, about Gladio and Ignis negotiating the inclusion of Prompto as a steady third, and I’ll get it done at some point, so I’m going with Ignis first noticing Prompto in an actual sexual/romantic fashion (mostly because we all saw Gladio and the terrible Lestallum popsicle debacle XD).

Ignis does not miss details. It’s his  _thing_. His actual thing, not the one he does because it’s needed. He cooks and comes up with strategies and looks after Noctis - and Prompto and Gladio - because it’s necessary and no one else has stepped up to do it. But his thing, his one true thing, the same way Gladio has camping and Prompto photography and Noctis fishing… his thing has always been his ability to see things and people for what they are.

Prompto however, seems to be a bit of a blindspot for Ignis, and he’s not entirely sure he likes it. 

Ignis met Prompto years ago and saw a sincere, if slightly awkward young man who complemented Noctis’ personality well enough to cultivate a life long friendship. Remarkable for that, but nothing extraordinary.

When the subject of the roadtrip to Altissa came up and became a solid plan, Noctis had asked Prompto to be allowed to come along. Ignis had expected this, of course, and he had also expected the King’s terms or something similar to it, considering the risks associated.

He had not expected Prompto Argentum to not only accept the terms but actually go out there and gain the Immortal’s approval. Ignis does not personally like the Marshal, for all he respects him and his work. Ignis can see Cor for what he is: a reckless, vicious force of nature barely contained inside his body, at the best of times, and he is not fooled in the slightest by his deadpan demeanor. Cor Leonis is a dangerous man, because he’s an unpredictable one. But he is fair, if nothing else, and he does not play favorites. So if Cor said Prompto was ready for actual live combat, that had weight to it.

And Prompto had been and is, and Ignis knows this because he’s seen it with his own two eyes, despite the whining and complaining and slightly poor-taste jokes. Prompto is solid in a fight, and Ignis has come to accept this, taking him into account in his plans and often granting him crucial roles in them.

But now there’s this.

This being Gladio’s ever lingering stares on the blond, with that hungry, thoughtful look of his, like a viper slowly slithering its way into position. Ignis knows it’s a terrible idea, and has made his thoughts and feelings well known, on the matter. It will not happen, at all.

But still. Now Gladio’s put the idea in his head. Now he’s forced to  _see_. He doesn’t see the same things Gladio does - Gladio is a terrible glutton for sex and never fails to see something engaging in nearly everyone he meets. Ignis sees… the quieter things. The way Prompto is always there, to offer a potion if someone needs it. The way he tries his best to get out of the way and carry his own weight. The way he tries so hard, always. The way he looks at Ignis sometimes and smiles when he thinks he’s not being noticed. The way he deflects teasing when it gets a bit meanspirited.

He doesn’t mean to see it, he doesn’t, but then Prompto reaches out to him, when he’s angry or irritated, and he jokes and tries to make him feel better without actually pointing out that’s what he’s doing. He’s considerate and caring and Ignis is a sucker for it, he knows it. He loves Gladio best when he’s being soft, and Prompto is all softness, beneath the bluster and the laughs.

“He wouldn’t be into it, anyway,” Ignis mutters, one day, while Gladio is trying yet again to argue for the possibility, how it could maybe not be a disastrous idea after all.

He knows he’s spoken out of line, when Gladio stares at him, wide-eyed.

“Maybe he is,” Gladio says, smile sly and terrible and Ignis wants to punch him and kiss him, in that order. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

Ignis knows he’s lost the argument when he realizes his objections have shifted tone and no matter what he tries he cannot shift them back without lying.

_Fuck._


	7. the bros' chocobo rental expires and they give hitchhiking a shot? Bonus points for Insomnian refugees

Normally, they’d leg it. It’s happened a few times - they get lost in caves and ruins and come out to crash in the nearest haven only to realize the next morning the birds are gone - and they’ll grump and sigh about it, but still just walk to the nearest post to rent them again, or all the way back to the car, if it’s closer.

But the car’s in Lestallum this time around, and even Gladio is not enthusiastic about the idea of climbing the overpass by foot. So they sit by the side of the road, a quarter of a mile before the overpass curves up high above the ground, and wait. There’s little traffic and it’s hot out, so they don’t really question it when the truck stops by to scoop them up.

They’re not, it turns out, the only one it’s picked up so far. There’s a family of six sitting with the cargo in the back, the oldest of the kids barely nine, the other three younger and smaller, proportionately. They huddle away from Gladio, terrified by size alone, and the parents give them wary, nervous looks. Ignis looks solemnly at them, as he strikes up a conversation, trying to break off the awkward mood, while Noctis stares at them with a frown and a bubbling roar of rage in his gut.

Prompto plays with the kids, showing them pictures and telling them stories, distracting them from the terse, awkward whispers in their mother’s tear-choked voice.

They arrive at Lestallum just before sunset, and partways with their temporary companions at the city’s main street. There’s something sad and somber about Ignis reminding them they don’t have anything they can give, and the truth of it bites deep because what’s the point of saving the world if there’s no one left there to live in it, after you’re done?

Sleep comes uneasy, that night, and many more after.


	8. chapter 13, but from Ignis's pov? Terribly curious what was going through his head, now that we know what attracted him to Prompto

There’s a certain vulnerability to sex, that makes Ignis’ skin crawl at the thought of strangers putting their hands on him. For Gladio, that’s half the fun of it: the thrill of someone new and willing, trying to figure out what he likes and paying attention to him because they want nothing more than to please him. He’s egotistic like that, and Ignis wouldn’t love him any other way.

Ignis likes to know what he’s doing, though. He likes the certainty, the familiarity of it. He’s spent years figuring out the best way to break Gladio to pieces in his bed, where to touch and how and for how long. He likes Gladio vulnerable and sated in his bed, blind trust in him to do whatever he deems appropriate, because he knows whatever Ignis wants to do is something Gladio will enjoy.

Prompto, though.

Prompto is a  _mystery_. He’s skittish about things, tentative and cautious, but willing to try. Ignis wants to lock himself in a room with him, for a day or two, and just figure out what he likes. They don’t, however, have time for that. So he makes do with the little stolen moments in the mornings, when Prompto wakes up wrapped up around him like weed, legs and arms holding onto him and erection near impossible to hide. Prompto flushes the most lovely shade of red, every time, and he nods, every time, when Ignis looks questioningly at him.

Every morning Ignis learns a new thing about him, this way, a tiny niblet of knowledge he hoards, slowly filling in the puzzle in his head. A touch here makes his breath hitch, a touch there makes his cheeks blaze.

And if he walks away before he’s done, if he leaves him writhing and in Gladio’s mercy, well, that works out well for Gladio too, doesn’t it?


	9. the bittersweet yearning universe, Ignis and Gladio angst

“Ardyn made me!” Noctis shrieked on the other end of the phone, distraught and desperate, but the ice was already crusting up Ignis’ insides, freezing the wheels of emotion in place. “I don’t know where he is, but we can’t leave him!”

“The fuck-” Gladio began, growling low in his throat and Ignis could almost see him, in his mind, swollen with angry and worry, careless about anything but the fact Prompto was gone.

Gone.

Ignis clenched his fingers on the cane and swung it blindly at Gladio’s face, one sharp, pointed blow to snap him out of it, before he got consumed by it.

“Stay calm, Noct,” Ignis said, voice even but not flat - flat would make Noctis notice, even now, so he forced just a whisper of emotion into it, just the tiniest bit to sound more human than he felt. “I am as concerned for Prompto as you are,” he lied, and in his mind he heard the screech of  _mine mine mine_  that made his knees want to buckle, “but stopping the train would endanger everyone on board. We’d be sitting ducks for the daemons.”

Gladio’s breath hitched, dangerous and feral, and Ignis raised his cane again, not swinging but threatening to, again.

“What do we do?” Noctis demanded, tears stuck in his throat, and Ignis envied him the privilege.

He soldiered on, even as Gladio gave up and wrapped himself around him, arms shaking as he crushed him in a desperate hold.

“First, we drop the passengers at Tenebrae, we should be arriving shortly,” Ignis said, cold and methodical, clinging to his sanity by forcing the world to fit into steps.

“What about Prompto?” Noctis yelled, vicious and guilty and heartbroken, unknowingly twisting the knife burning hot in Ignis’ gut and threatening to thaw out the storm barely contained in his bones.

“Given the chancellor’s involvement, it’s probable he’s no longer where we left him,” Ignis said, because it was the truth - truth above all else, yes, but they’d never meant it like this - and he barely stopped himself before he followed through that line of thought, but only because Gladio whimpered into the back of his neck, almost to snapping point, himself. “In any case,” Ignis went on, lying sweet and tender and hopeful, “he might try to contact us. Let us wait and hope for now.”


	10. Gladio and Ignis' reactions to finding out Prompto has a limited shelf-life so to speak

“He was meant to turn,” Ignis says, voice gravely low, “he was… he was meant to last only until he was made useful to them.”

“He can’t turn anymore,” Gladio snarls back, and it’s the one thing that makes him glad Iggy can’t see him anymore, that he can snarl and wave his arms and be as fucking aggressive as he feels, and Iggy can’t see it anymore, can’t flinch back from it or chide him for it. “There’s no more scourge to turn him!”

“That might be so,” Ignis replies, quiet, always so, so quiet, when he’d rather be screaming, that’s the difference between them. “But that doesn’t mean he’s stop being what they made him into.”

It sounds kinder than it should, and it still makes Gladio’s entire being throb with a pulse of rage so profound he wants to march out and murder the son of a bitch who did this, all over again.

“The fuck do we do now?” Gladio whispers, voice broken and tired and bone-deep weary.

“You come to bed,” Prompto says, standing in the doorway, eyes hooded and expression wry. “And then we cry and hug a lot. That’s how I deal with it, anyway.”


	11. Prompto prompting prolifering puns

“Yeah, I can picture that,” Prompto replied, and then grinned shamelessly when Noctis squinted at him, and summoned his camera into his hands, just to punctuate the wiggling eyebrows.

“Can you not?”

“Nikkon definitely,” Prompto replied, delighted in the frown taking over Noctis’ face. “Though I don’t want you to think I’m just zooming in on the opportunity, this kind of thing has to develop on its own. I shutter at the thought of rushing it, and letting it go by in a flash.”

“I hate you,” Noctis said, in the toneless voice of a broken man. “So much.”

“No, you don’t,” Prompto replied, laughing. “You reel at the thought of me being gone.”

“So, so much,” Noctis sighed.

“Halibut I guess that makes it sound like you’re casting a lure for compliments, but that’s not your style.”

“Prompto, stop.”

“You’re more of a carp diem kind of person.”

“URG.”


	12. Ok, what if The Boys get separated? Maybe a tunnel caved in and cut the group in two, or maybe it's the middle of the night and -someone- warped too far.

It’s cold and it’s dark and Prompto wants nothing more than to whimper and maybe curl up and die. But he can’t. He won’t. The blocks keep moving, ceiling-floor-walls shifting around him, taking him with them, but refusing to show him a sliver of freedom just yet.

But they might.

So he needs to be ready. He needs to be prepared.

The floor slides from under him, jerking wildly and next thing he knows he’s falling, face first into the dark. He might have shrieked, but he’s not sure, his lungs feel empty and his throat feels raw, and he’s going to die like this, in the dark, alone…

Gladio breaks his fall.

“There you are!” Noctis cries out, throwing himself arms first into the floor with them, and Prompto breathes again, heart beating again, because he’s fine, he’s fine.

“Sorry,” he mutters, looking up to find Ignis’ severe expression staring down at him and the pile of limbs and just sheer relief they’ve made.

“You better be,” Ignis says bitingly, archly, furiously, but then he reaches out to pull his face up and press his lips to his, and Prompto sags into it, every nerve in his body slacking at once.

It was fine. They’d be fine.

“I  _hate_ this place,” Prompto whined, face buried into Ignis’ chest, “so fucking much.”


	13. any song from Marina and the Diamonds' Electra Heart

“You should leave me here.”

Prompto watches Gladio and Ignis stumble at the words, with a small, amused smile tugging at his lips. It might be a grimace of despair, instead, though. He’s hard at telling those apart, these days.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Gladio snarls, looming and terrible and broken clear split the middle of his soul, in a way that bleeds and oozes and makes Prompto want to stick his hands in it to hold it close.

“You should leave me here,” Prompto says, voice as even as he can make it, arms limply hanging off his sides.

“Prompto-”

“You don’t understand,” Prompto goes on, talking right over Ignis’ complaints with an ease he hadn’t known he could have. “When I said… when I said I was one of them. I meant I’m one of them. I’m… I was made to be one of them.”

“And we said that didn’t matter,” Gladio snarls back, eyes narrowed. “N… Noct too.”

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Prompto replies, smile-grimace widening, taking over, overflowing. “I do. But sentiment doesn’t change the fact I was made to be one of them.” And then, quieter, somber, broken. “I’m going to turn into a monster. It’s not… it’s not an if, it’s a when. And when it happens I don’t want to be anywhere near you two.”

“You don’t know that,” Ignis hisses, fingers clenched viciously tight around his cane. “You don’t-”

“I do.” Prompto swallows hard. “I read the research notes. Went through the whole thing. It’s… it’s meant to happen. It’s going to happen. You need to leave me here. Leave me behind.”


	14. maybe some Noct POV from bittersweet?

Noct doesn’t, on principle, think much about it.

He tries not to. It’s awkward and painful and never ends well. He doesn’t get it. Any of it. He writes little notes to Luna about it, and she writes back to laugh at him and wish him well.

He’s not… he doesn’t know how any of it works, when it’s just two people, and the thought of three just makes his head spin, a little. But he doesn’t have to think about it, because it doesn’t concern him. It doesn’t. His friends are happy and in love and that’s… that’s good. Okay.

Luna writes him gentle, subtle jabs, the kind that leave him thinking about them for days afterwards, and he replies with snippy, embarrassed comebacks that he knows will only make her laugh.

He loves her. He  _loves_  her.

This is what he understands love to be: letters sneaked around in the dark, ink staining his fingers and pictures and throw-aways of their lives pressed into the pages. This is what he understands love to be: devotion and duty and a promise of a meeting to make the world right.

Love is distance across the pages and measured in the secret double-coded language of their missives, saying as much as possible in as little they’re allowed.

He watches his friends stumble around, trying to find their place again, to figure out the stable orbit around each other, and he tells himself he’s better off not knowing - knowing, wanting, thinking, and Luna laughs at him, he knows, because she tells him so and asks him not to be afraid.

It’s better this way.


	15. Gladio/ignis/Prompto snuggles in the Bittersweet verse

Prompto keeps expecting them to ask, and he waits and waits and waits, but all that happens is that Ignis helps him get out of his clothes and Gladio follows him into the shower. It’s not even the fun kind of shower, either, which he thinks he appreciates, logically, but he’s still riding the tail end of a panic swing, and he’s not sure how to feel.

But then they’re tumbling into a bed far too small for everyone involved - every bed is too small, if Gladio is involved - and Prompto begins to relax, just a little, bit by bit, as Ignis runs his hands through his wet hair and Gladio dutifully wraps himself around them both.

“It wasn’t bad,” Prompto says eventually, which he’s keenly aware they’ll zero in on the fact it wasn’t  _good_  either, but… but he panicked, by the end of it, and he can’t quite deny that. “I mean it was just…”

“Weird?” Gladio muses, mouthing the word against his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Prompto nods, peeking at Ignis’ expression under his lashes.

“It gets easier,” Ignis says, mouth curved into that soft little smile of his that Prompto would do anything for.

“Dunno if I want to try again,” Prompto admits, leaning forward to bury his face into the crook of Ignis’ neck.

“And that’s okay,” Gladio rumbles against his skin, and everything is warm and comfortable and easy, and Prompto melts a little more. “You do what makes you happy, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Prompto sighs. ”Trial and error, right?”

“It’s still the best way to figure out these things, I’m afraid,” Ignis muses with a goodnatured smile.


	16. chocobros (any or all) + favourite season/holiday/time of the year

Gladio loves winter best.

He loves the crisp, cool air. He loves wading through snow, knee deep, and feeling the chill settling all the way to his bones. He loves watching Iris roll around in the snow and he loves pretending to be aloof long enough to get her to goad him into a snowball fight that usually turns into all out war before they’ve lost feeling in their fingers and their toes.

He loves sitting down with a good book by the fire, wrapped up in a warm blanket, afterwards, just basking in the feeling of the world being alright, despite it all, if only for a bit. That first winter, after he gets his act together and risks telling Ignis about his feelings, he finds that this is even better with a warm body pressed up close against his side. He doesn’t even mind that Ignis spends most of the time glued to his phone, firing off emails and trying to make a dent into the obscene amount of work he has to deal with. Because Ignis could be doing that literally anywhere else, and he’s doing it by soaking up Gladio’s warmth instead.

“Iggy?” Gladio asks, chin hooked on Ignis’ shoulder like it belongs there. Because it does.

“Mmm?” Ignis replies, not quite looking up from the lightning fast movements of his fingers as he typed out a paragraph the size of his phone’s screen.

Gladio leaned in to kiss the corner of his jaw.

“Love you,” he says, quite and without much fanfare because… because it’s true and he does and that’s just how it is.

Ignis stops, sharp breath stuck in his throat, and turns his head to give Gladio that squinty look of his that meant he’s trying to gauge the weight behind Gladio’s words. Gladio shrugs helplessly.

Gladio loves winter.

It’s cold, snowy winter, when Ignis puts down his phone and takes off his glasses, before kissing him like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do.


	17. would Cosmic Love by Florence + the Machine be a good World of Ruin song or what?

He’ll be back, they tell themselves.

He’ll be back, and they only leave Gralea because Ardyn has taken the Crystal with him, heading back to Insomnia.

He’ll be back, but they stop in Tenebrae to help out and close the march of refugees heading desperately back to Lestallum.

He’ll be back, but they keep getting sidetracked, like he used to, stopping by to help anyone that needs it, and they refuse to feel guilty or admit it’s how they best honor his legacy.

He’ll be back, but they keep breaking off, in ones and twos and then only ones, each one heading up to hold the fort somewhere, and Insomnia becomes a wasteland and a dream just barely out of reach; tomorrow they’ll head out.

He’ll be back, but not today, and today the world is dark and cold and unforgiving, and they need to make it not so, to welcome him back.

Back.

He’ll be back.


	18. How's about a ficlet about Bittersweet Promptos parents? Are you in the "horrible people" camp or the "good people; too busy" camp?

Lyra Argentum collapses at the Leide bridge checkpoint, having put the small, crying baby in a bewildered officer’s hands, and barely just pulling out a battered Crownsguard badge to identify herself. She’s unconscious by the time she hits the floor. They rush her to the nearest hospital, uncovering another wound by the minute, each one more hidden and more deadly than the last.

She does not wake up again.

Her brother, a thin, stern-looking man with the same dark hair and viciously sharp eyes, comes claim her body late in the evening. He does not grieve openly, composed even as they explain every tiny detail of his sister’s condition and the various injuries she sustained, before she died.

“What of the child?” He asks the representative of the Crownsguard there to release the body to his custody, because there was quite distinctly a child involved in all the contradictory and often jumbled stories he’s been told, and Orpheus Argentum is nothing if not thorough.

“You really need not concern yourself about it,” he replies, wary as the Crownsguard always is, whenever dealing with those who made their living playing at court. “The Crownsguard will handle it.”

“All due respect, I’d rather see to it myself,” Orpheus says, and shrugs delicately when the man gives up pretenses and merely stares helplessly at him. “My sister died to keep that boy alive. If there is no reason for the Crownsguard to forbid it, I would very much like to make sure she’s not died in vain and see that the boy is well cared for myself.”

They argue with him. Orpheus makes a living arguing with the King’s court, they do not get very far, arguing with him. He has his secretary procure the paperwork and by the end of the week Prompto Argentum is added to the family registry without a fuss. His wife isn’t particularly thrilled by the news, but then, he jokes dryly that at least this way they will not have to worry about procuring an heir. It’s all very tidy and simple, like everything else in Orpheus’ life.

The boy is ten, when they offer to move Orpheus to Accordo. By Orpheus’ best estimation, he and his sister were well capable of surviving on their own at that age. Prompto will certainly be safer in Insomnia, than in enemy territory, and quite likely better equipped to survive, since he’ll have more resources at his disposal than Orpheus ever dreamed of, at that age. It’ll be fine.

Things have a way of sorting themselves out, in his experience, to fall back into the neat, orderly lines where they belong.


	19. Nyx parkouring into Cor's apartment and eating his food.

Nyx didn’t, in the strictest sense, have to break in. He had keys. Cor had given him keys. That was a thing that had happened. It had been pretty exciting, as had been the sex afterwards. But it was late and the guard on duty in the lobby was the sort Nyx would much rather not deal with, because he asked questions and sneered a lot and honestly, he’d just spent two weeks on guard duty because he ran his mouth at Drautos, again, and he was tired of people sneering at him.

Besides it was only like, twenty eight floors. It wasn’t that big of a deal. All he had to do was be stealthy about it, and no one would ever know.

He fiddled with the balcony door until it popped open and then closed it behind him as he padded quietly to the kitchen. It wasn’t weird, really, for Nyx to break into Cor’s apartment to eat dinner and sleep in his bed. Cor had given him keys. Actual keys! Nyx had bought a moogle keyring charm for them, just because he knew it’d make Cor prickly and annoyed to see it. He was allowed to do this, it wasn’t weird. Or creepy. Or anything.

And, anyway, they were dating. Had been dating, for years now. Nyx was allowed to be a little weird, on occasion, because he missed his boyfriend. That was a thing. It was allowed. It was okay.

He glared at the microwave, watching the plate spin inside it as it heated up, and chewed on his hair and the ridiculous twist-and-turns of his love life. The microwave beeped obnoxiously, done with the task. Nyx stood up straighter, ready to dig in.

The next thing he knew he was on the floor, a sword to his throat and one of his daggers pressed up against… Cor’s throat?

Nyx blinked.

“Hey,” he said, licking his lips as Cor scowled down at him. “I’m gonna put that away now, okay?” When he received no immediate answer, he swallowed hard. “Okay,” he said, and willed the dagger to vanish into crystals.

It took Cor nearly a minute of blankly staring down at him, to loosen his grip on his sword and send it into the void as well. By then, Nyx was aware of the slightly confused frown parked firmly on Cor’s face, and the fact he looked like shit.

“Sorry,” Cor muttered, pulling back slowly, carefully.

Nyx wasn’t sure what to address first, the fact Cor was back two full weeks earlier than anticipated, that he’d almost murdered him, or that he looked like he’d gotten the ever loving shit beaten out of him.

“It’s cool,” Nyx said, even though it really wasn’t, “keeps me sharp, right?” He offered a small grin that Cor did not return, because Cor was frowning like it was taking him inordinate amount of effort to keep himself awake. “You hungry?”

“Not really,” Cor murmured, shuffling back to his feet slowly, carefully, like it hurt to move too much, and Nyx noticed and filed the thought away to chew on later.

“Let me rephrase that,” he said patiently, offering a grin as he casually steadied Cor and helped shuffle him back towards his bedroom. “Have you eaten in the last six hours?”

Cor actually thought about it for a moment, before answering.

“No.”

“Okay.”

It wasn’t, not really, but Cor looked pretty fucked up and Nyx wasn’t really that hungry anymore. It was his food, anyway. So no harm done. Cor had to be feeling pretty fantastically bad, because he didn’t even grump about the fact Nyx brought him food while he was in bed. And he was pretty damn good at snarking at him for eating in bed. It was one of the main reasons Nyx did it in the first place.

“Want me to leave?” Nyx asked, as casually as he could, even though he really didn’t want to, watching Cor slowly and methodically work his way through his plate.

There was a pause, long and awkward, and then a tiny shrug. Something rolled in Nyx’s gut. Something vast and terrible and empty. He thought it was anger, the kind that was shapeless and aimless, without a specific target to focus on. He swallowed it back and took the plate once Cor was done with it, leaving it on the nightstand - Cor didn’t glare at him for it, so Nyx added it to the pile of things he was ignoring - and then slid into bed with him, shuffling about until they were comfortable.

“Sorry I almost killed you,” Cor muttered into his neck.

Nyx laughed. Because of course he did. It was better than the alternative.


	20. Bittersweet Prompto's home life, either before or after he starts hanging out with Noct? Maybe both?

The secret to all success is organization.

Or at least that’s what his father likes to say, with a self-satisfied little smile, that means he’s sharing something that he thinks should be a secret, but strictly speaking, isn’t. Prompto learned this early on, organizing school supplies and his homework and his planner.

Later on, after his parents moved out to Accordo, he learned to apply this to his allowance as well.

It’s not, strictly speaking, that he’ll starve if he fudged his math and ends up spending more than he should. It’s not like he’ll live in filth, destitute and pitiful, if he forgets to do his laundry.

But his father will call, at the end of the week, and when Prompto is meant to provide a status report of his life and his chores and his existence as a whole, he’ll be forced to admit his mistakes and then his father will sound disappointed and the usual five minute call will derail into a twenty minute lecture on the importance of self-sufficiency and self-control.

He could lie, of course, but that feels even worse, somehow.

Prompto checks his math over and over again, tallying up the bank statement on his phone with the tiny stack of receipts on the table. 

Sunday is going to  _suck_.


	21. Prom, Ignis and gladio, downtime during the 10 year gap

Ignis doesn’t have something as mundane as a base of operations. Not quite. There’s the main shelter in Galdin, and then there’s Ignis’ room in the remnants of the old hotel, filled floor to ceiling with ancient books and maps and reports and about anything he can get his hands on. Talcott has made peace with his lot in life, as keeper of Ignis’ mess and his privileged place as his eyes. Prompto passes the sleeping boy - he’s not a boy, he hasn’t been in a while, but it’s the kind of thing he’s supposed to do, cling to the memories of better times, or at least so Cor tells him, in that dry, brittle tone of his that makes Prompto laugh because the alternative would be worse - and slips inside the labyrinth of lost lore and loose ends that might still yield… something. Anything. Prompto thinks Ignis works because that’s what he thinks he’s supposed to do, when he’s not out there ruining some daemon’s day - night, whatever - but he knows better than to say. There’s so many things they’ve said, so many things they’ll still get around to talk about yet, and so many more they’ll never give voice to.

It’s just how it goes.

“Hey, Iggy,” Prompto says, well before he enters the room, because he’s tired and it’s late and he really doesn’t want to test his reflexes and figure out if he’s still sharp enough to dodge a stray dagger.

Ignis is pretty mean with those these days, but then, Prompto amends in his head, he’s always been.

“Prompto,” Ignis says, tilting his head in his direction just as Gladio emerges from a different corner of the shadowed room to envelop him into a crushing hug that leaves Prompto laughing breathlessly into his chest. “How are you?”

“Still not Mark,” Prompto says a little dry, a little mean himself, and then laughs again as Gladio chokes on a snort and lets him go. “Better, now,” he adds, less flippant, more tired, and pats Gladio’s arm as he moves over to wrap himself around Ignis.

Ignis’ mouth quirks into a sharp smirk, far too old for wry.

“It’s good to see you,” he says, chuckling as Prompto buries a snort into the side of his head. “We almost thought…”

But he’s still not mean enough to finish the thought, because of course Prompto would show. Even if it took him a pace that pushed even Cor - Cor, cranky, bitter, resilient, never-ending Cor, snoring just outside the perimeter of the lights, keeping watch in his own way - all the way from Ravatogh to Galdin, in seven days.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Prompto says, and leans in to kiss the corner of Ignis’ mouth. “Though I’m gonna need either of you to pacify the Marshal for me, he was muttering about old bones when we landed in Caem last night.”

“I’ll see to the old man,” Gladio snorts, dropping an arm around Prompto’s shoulders and using a hand to tilt his head up to press his lips to Prompto’s cheek. ”…later.”

“Later,” Ignis agrees, and tugs them both along to join him in the corner of what used to be an old couch. “For now…”

It’s Prompto’s turn, this year. He pulls out the candle and the lighter, scavenged out months ago and kept carefully safe in the pockets of his pants, through thick, thin, and in between.

“Happy Birthday, Noct,” he says, flicking the small flame into being.


	22. Prompto/Gladio/Ignis smut in the bittersweet universe

Prompto choked.

Immediately everything came to a screeching halt as Gladio threw himself forward, trying to haul him back up and check on him, but then he realized Prompto was laughing. Gladio gave Ignis a little helpless look, but all Ignis did was shrug and place a hand on Prompto’s back, inquiring and comforting at once.

“I’m sorry,” Prompto snorted, burying his face in his hands. “I’m sorry, I just. The look on Noct’s  _face_.”

Gladio blinked.

“What?”

Ignis snorted.

“Yes,” he said quietly, lips quirked into a smile, and then shrugged when he felt Gladio’s stare on him.

“Am I missing something here?” Gladio asked, sitting back on the bed with a small frown.

“Remember when you got… stoned, earlier?” Prompto asked, eyebrows arched.

“I think the word you want is  _petrified_ ,” Gladio retorted dryly, already not liking where this was going. “But yes.”

“Iggy… Iggy said…” Prompto began, and then dissolved into helpless laughter again.

“I might or might not chosen my words poorly when I informed Noct of your predicament,” Ignis said gravely, though Gladio could see his eyes glinting with suppressed mirth.

“Gladio is hard as a rock!” Prompto cried out, and then immediately buried his face into his hands, trying desperately to contain the giggling.

“You did not,” Gladio said, both amused and horrified.

“Noct might or might not misfired a warp over that,” Ignis went on, making to push his glasses up his nose, despite the fact he very clearly wasn’t wearing them at the moment.

“I’m sorry,” Prompto snickered, wiping tears off his eyes. “I’m sorry, it was terrible but.” He looked up at Gladio with mischievous eyes, grin easy on his lips. “You really are hard as a rock right now.”

Gladio flopped back into the bed, groaning as he threw an arm over his face.

“ _Prompto_.”

Ignis kept his hand on Prompto’s back as he leaned forward to run the other one from Gladio’s navel up to the head of the eagle tattoo.

“More so than your usual granite composure, at least,” he said, with a straight face, because he was made of magic deadpan, it was amazing.

“You two suck,” Gladio muttered despondently, peering at them through his fingers.

Prompto beamed.

“Can do, big guy,” he said, and went back to wrap his mouth around the crown of Gladio’s dick like the little interlude never happened.

“I mean,” Ignis added, shifting about until he wasn’t getting in the way of Prompto’s forever earnest attempts to deep throat Gladio, “you’re asking so nicely…”

Gladio considered telling them to fuck off, honestly. He really did. But the head of his cock sat on Prompto’s tongue like it belonged there, and Ignis’ mouth joining him couldn’t be anything but fantastic, considering Ignis was good at everything he did, including giving head.

Any misgivings he might have had - which were none, really, he was mostly miffed he’d missed their Prince’s reaction to what he knew to be Ignis’ legendary raunchy puns - were pretty much gone by the time they were done taking turns to fuck him into a puddle of purring content on the bedspread.


	23. Perhaps a ficlet about Orpheus. Spoilers? Teasers? What's he doing in Altissa that had him crossing paths with the guys?

Altissia is an idyllic piece of propaganda so well crafted, Orpheus is tempted to genuinely enjoy it.

As it is, he knows what is expected of him, what needs to be done and what can’t possibly be overstated. He peddles trading routes like it’s all that matters, like buying his wife this or that expensive trinket is truly the most important thing in the world.

That’s all.

One of his contacts asks him, in the most roundabout, tacit way possible, if he’d like to leave. If he’d left anyone behind, back behind Insomnia’s Wall. Orpheus does not realize this, of course, until after the news break.

“You knew,” he says, doesn’t scream, cold and quiet and furious enough his blood is boiling under his skin.

“Of course I knew,” Weskham Armaugh replies, managing somehow to arch an eyebrow without popping off the ridiculous monocle in his face. “Everyone knew, Argentum.” He pauses. “Well, everyone with the right paygrade and under the right hierarchy.”

Orpheus considers punching him. It’d make him feel better, at least. That, unfortunately, was always more Lyra’s style, than his own.

“Now what?” He asks instead, mouth just barely twitching in displeasure, like he’s been mildly inconvenienced by the current events, at most.

“Now comes the fun part,” Weskham tells him, the smug, irritating snake, but there’s little else for Orpheus to do, than move on forward.

Always.


	24. Bittersweet Yearning + Pet names? Who's most prone to using them, or who uses them so little, it's thrilling when he does?

“This is a terrible waste,” Ignis mutters, though the sentiment is somewhat undercut by the fact his face is tucked into Prompto’s neck, body slack. “Utterly unconscionable.”

“Totally agree,” Prompto agrees easily. fingers trailing slowly along the sharp edges of Ignis’ shoulder blades. “But also,  _bath_.”

Ignis laughs, that quiet, raspy chuckle of his.

“How could I argue with that logic?” He says, lips twitching. “…thank you, Prom.”

Prompto stills for a moment, like he always does. Then he presses his lips to the edge of the scar, by Ignis’ ear, where it’s the most sensitive.

“I mean,” Prompto says, after the moment passes, “Gladio helped.”

“Did he?” Ignis asks, a tilt of laughter to his voice.

“Probably,” Prompto snorts, burying his face into Ignis’ hair. “You do this on purpose.”

“I do no such thing, Prom,” Ignis replies, lips twitching when all of Prompto twitches in reply, “it’d be a terrible  _oversight_ on my part.”

Prompto chokes on helpless laughter, hurt edges numbed by the years and careful, deliberate jokes, chipping away at the tragedy one grain at the time.

“I love you,” Prompto says, because it’s true and because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“I know,” Ignis replies, melting into the luxury of the warm water and the warm body cradling his. “I love you too.”


	25. Aranea and Prompto interactions?

“This is fine,” Prompto says, letting out a shaky, stuttering breath as they study their route, which is less of a route and more of a gauntlet, the kind that people are probably not supposed to get through alive.

Aranea snorts, leaning her weight on her lance.

“Is it?” She asks, one eyebrow arched, trailing her gaze up and down Prompto’s still twitchy frame.

“Um, no,” Prompto replies, and manages at the last second to rub his face in his hands, instead of merely burying it in them. “No, not really. It’s super not fine, actually.”

“Turn back then?” Aranea asks, head tilted slightly to the side, in one of the three tones she has, that lets Prompto know he could probably say yes and not get smacked upside the head for it.

“Can’t,” Prompto says instead, running his hands through his hair and then letting out a short, sharp breath, as he threw his shoulders back, bracing. “Gotta think of the orphans.”

Aranea blinks.

“Orphans?” She demands, “what orphans?”

“The fictional, tragic orphans I’ve been imagining since we left Lestallum,” Prompto replies, offering a weak smile to go with it, “to guilt trip myself into not lying down and dying for a bit.” He shrugs and throws the bag over his shoulder, starting down the trial with as much confidence as he could muster, which wasn’t all that much to be honest. “Wanna hear about them?”

Aranea snorts.

“I mean sure, why the fuck not?”

The karlabos, all four of them, rush at them at once. Because of course they do.

“So there’s little Timmy,” Prompto says, in a surprisingly even voice, as he dutifully loads the rocket launcher suddenly in his hands. “Little Timmy is a  _dick_.”

“I love him already,” Aranea laughs, leaps and leaves a crater behind.

It goes from there.


	26. Aranea and Prompto being badass

“Did you know people think we’re dating?” Prompto asked one very late afternoon ‘morning’, watching the sun steadily crawl up the horizon before turning to where Aranea was scowling thoughtfully at a map of Ravatogh. “Because people think we’re dating.”

“People are frightened and stupid,” Aranea replied, chewing on a strip of dried, spicy meat jerky. “Gossip is harmless fun that keeps them from rioting over dumb shit.”

“It’s not harmless!” Prompto whined, coming to sit at the table, “it’s making it impossible for me to get laid. Every time I try someone gives me the stink eye or stutters your name out in a terrified squeak.”

“If you want to get laid go visit your boyfriend,” Aranea retorted with a snort, “boyfriends, actually, in plural, ‘cause you have two of them, and you somehow manage to avoid them  _both_.”

“I’m not avoiding my boyfriends,” Prompto insisted very sincerely, “I’m avoiding the inevitable screaming match that will ensue when my boyfriends realize you and I really did go all the way to  _Galahd_.”

“It wasn’t even that exiting,” Aranea sighed.

“ _You_ know that, and  _I_  know that, and I can still hear Ignis’ Disappointed Voice when I close my eyes.”


	27. Prompto and Ignis, self-esteem

“Because you’re not disposable to me!” Ignis snarled, vicious and feral, and didn’t step back when Prompto flinched and pressed himself flat against the wall of the cave. “You’re not.”

“I’m-” Prompto began, and flinched again when Ignis reached out and held his face in his hands, tilting it up so they were staring at each other, breathing the same air. “We all are.” He swallowed hard, and knew he’d have the imprint of Ignis’ fingers on his chin in the morning. “That’s the point, isn’t it? That’s why we’re here for. To help Noct do… whatever grand destiny he’s supposed to achieve, right? We’re the stepping stones, we’re not… we’re not the heroes of this story. We’re going to die, but it’s okay, if we manage to die and get him a little bit closer to where he’s gotta be.”

“And does that mean you’ll throw your life away at the first chance you get?” Ignis retorted, unrelenting. “Does that mean you should get it done as soon as possible?”

“It means I’m ready to do it,” Prompto replied, licking his lips, “whenever the time comes.”


	28. Noctis, thoughts on the OT3

It must be nice, Noct thinks, when it’s past two and he still can’t sleep right, despite having a nice bed and all the quiet in the world to lull him, to have someone to hold when things to to shit.

He doesn’t mean the thought jealously. He’s thought long and hard and realized he’s not jealous of his friends. He’s happy for them, happy for the stolen moments and the secretive smiles and all those things they share with each other that are just for them. He’s happy for them.

He’s happy for them.

It’s just.

It must be nice.

He hasn’t seen Umbra in a while, hasn’t gotten the solid weight of the book in his hands in what feels like forever, though perhaps it’s for the best. He’s always boiling in anxiety, thinking of the million things he needs Luna to know, but when he’s got the book in his hands, when there’s weight of paper and consequences to the words, they just… they dry up and all he can think of are platitudes that can’t hope to say all that he needs. Wants.

It must be so nice, to have the ones you love at arm’s length. To reach out and talk and hear their voice out of their own mouth, not recordings three months old. It must be so nice.


	29. More Aranea and Prompto during WoR

“So,” Prompto said, staring at the fallen garula, “are we really  _that_ hungry?”

Half of it was gone to the scourge, so much so it was a bit of a miracle it hadn’t spontaneously turned into a daemon. They’d seen that happen enough times, as it was.

“Four days to Lestallum,” Aranea replied, frowning. “And that’s only if we don’t run into any resistance.”

Which was a given they’d run into, because that was just the fantastically shitty lot they’d been served.

“Right,” Prompto sighed. “The alternative is hopefully five minutes of horror and a headshot and or lance to the face.”

Aranea pressed her lips together, and then snorted.

“Lestallum it is,” she said, resolutely, and turned her back on the carcass. “I don’t want to deal with your boyfriends when you die.”

Prompto laughed, scrubbed his face and went to take his usual place in their travel formation.

Four days.

He could handle four days.


	30. Ignis and Gladio react to the rumors about Prompto/Aranea

“…it’s really hard,” Gladio muttered, sitting next to Ignis in the dark of his study in Caem, just digesting the news they’d been delivered. “To not just…”

“Blurt out the fact you’ve seen her drunk and sobbing because she’s, and I quote,  _a fucking useless lesbian_ whenever Miss Elshett is within a four mile radius of her?” Ignis ventured, dry and cutting and dickish, as always.

Gladio snorted.

“I’m actively trying to repress the memory, actually,” he replied, shaking his head and leaning in to press his lips against the edge of Ignis’ forehead, right above the glasses. “But essentially, yes.”

“Indeed.”


	31. prompto, aranea and their cabal of imaginary orphans

“So anyway, Lisa is obviously going to end up doing drugs, because poor life choices and also apparently you can’t manufacture food but some idiots figure out how to process X in the Lestallum sewers last month and I just-”

“Okay put a pin on the X thing, I need to yell at that and actually do something about it later, why the hell would Lisa do drugs? She’s a math genius, the goddamn girl.”

“The world’s gone to shit, Nea, math isn’t going to save her.”

“You’re going grimdark with my fucking orphans and that’s not allowed. She gets an intervention and picks up her life again.”

“Somethings you can’t recover from! Objectively not all of them are going to make it!”

“Do I have to kick your fucking teeth in? The orphans always make it, that’s the whole point! They made it even when little Timmy sold their stuff to buy a magical sword that turned out to be a toy. They can survive this.”

“But-”

“If I break all your teeth, none of your boyfriends will want to kiss you, so think about what you’re going to say next very carefully.”

“…okay, fine, but an intervention doesn’t solve the problem! What happens next?”

“…well, obviously it doesn’t fix everything. But it’s a start. Maybe she can join the Glaive.”

“Maybe she can find a temperamental mercenary and join her instead.”

“Maybe my foot needs to relocate to your face again,  _smartass_.”


	32. Noct is not quite sure what to make about the stories Talcott shares, about Prompto and Aranea

“And then there’s Prompto,” Talcott says, wincing as his hands tighten around the wheel, and for a moment Noctis’ stomach hits his knees, “and Miss Highwind.”

Then Talcott sighs, the same weary tired sigh that Noct vaguely remembers as adults being exasperated by children playing when they shouldn’t.

Which.

Talcott.

Yeah.

“Are they…” Noct ventures, not quite sure he wants to know, but also desperately needing to know.

“Oh, they’re fine,” Talcott sighs, shaking his head, blissfully unaware of the fact Noct nearly slumped into the seat in relief. “Prompto stays around Hammerhead most of the time, since the sun stopped coming up entirely. To keep an eye on Miss Cindy, of course. You know how he is, but she’s married to her job.” Talcott shakes his head. “But before… well, he was around for a lot of the defining moments of Miss Highwind’s career. Ignis and Gladio… they were less than amused by some of those highlights.”

“Such as?” Noct asks, not quite sure what could be so bad.

Aranea was… a bit overwhelming, at times, yes, but Prompto… Prompto was the  _normal_ one, out of the four of them. Prompto took pictures and complained about everything they were too proud to complain for themselves and smiled and reminded them how to laugh.

“Oh, you know, stealing a boat and heading out to Altissia?” Talcott mutters, nose wrinkled up in disapproval, “getting lost in a storm and somehow ending up in Galahd? That kind of thing.”

“…oh,” Noct says, because… well, what else is there to say in the first place?


	33. that one time prompto and aranea meant to go to altissia and somehow ended up in galahd instead

“We were left for dead,” the woman says, eyes sunken and hair streaked with grey at least two decades too early. “So we hid. We sank deeper into the forests, into the old caves and the old tunnels. There were daemons there, but we figured out they stayed away from water drained straight from Galahd river.” She licks her lips, hands clenched tight on the staff that keeps her upright and that they suspect - correctly - she also uses to defend herself. “The river’s holy, you see. Pure. Eventually the war ended or the soldiers left, at least, and we waited for them to come back and find us. To rebuild.” She swallows hard. “But they never did. Instead the sun grew dimmer and the days shorter and the river itself started shrinking, drying out at the edges. It’s almost gone now.”

She doesn’t explain what will happen, once the river stops flowing entirely. It would be the same that would happen, the day the Glaive stopped finding more clusters of the meteor and the lights in Lestallum went dim.

“We have a boat,” Prompto says, ignoring Aranea’s not too subtle kick at his ankle, “it’d be cramped and awkward and maybe we’ll need more than one trip, but we could probably take you with us.”

“To Insomnia?” The woman asks, somewhat skeptical, and her face itches against the edges of Prompto’s memory, but he can’t quite place why, since he’s fairly sure he’s never seen her before.

But there’s something to her, to the shape of her eyes and the way her lips look like they want to fold into a wry smile, almost on reflex, that he can’t quite place.

“To Lestallum, further inland,” Aranea corrects, eyebrows arched, “Insomnia fell nearly three years ago.”

The woman smiles, it’s a girlish kind of smile, the sort that is meant to reassure but also condemn, all at once.

“Like I said,” she says, head tilted to the side, “we were left for dead.”

“Think we can get at least a name first?” Aranea asks, frowning and resisting the urge to smack Prompto for it, “before we commit to the whole rescue party bit?”

Because Galahd has been a nightmare, and admittedly there’s something to the idea of survivors that’s almost… surreal. Everything in the goddamn island wants them dead, even the fucking grass. It’s insane.

“Oh,” and the woman blinks, startled, and tilts her head to the side, as if having to think about it. “Selena. My name’s Selena. I’m sorry, it’s been so long, you’d think I was raised in a barn. I can almost hear my mother chiding me for it.” Her smile wilts somewhat. “Welcome to Galahd.”


	34. prompto meets his mother in altissia

He wasn’t what she expected.

But to be fair to him - and she’d never been, she knew, and she’d tried, but it curdled under her tongue and refused to push out - she’d never known what to expect of him. He was thin and gangling and vaguely underfed, and she waited and waited for the impulse to shelter and protect came out, but it never did. It never did. She was too angry at her husband for the insult the boy represented, to ever see the boy as his own person, and not an extension of that insult.

Orpheus had put him in her arms, small and crying and defenseless, and smiled when he pointed out it no longer matter if she was defective. She hadn’t thrown the boy into the ground there and then, because a sliver of her understood he wasn’t at fault.

But a sliver is thin and weak and quiet, and the rest of her festered in the outrage.

And now he’s here, this boy, who carries her name and none of her blood. He’s here and he’s… waiting. Hoping. Even if she wanted to, she has nothing to give to him. But without him here, in this house, where she’s sat and festered for years, she’s learned to at least focus her hatred to the man responsible, rather than the tools he used to injure her dignity.

“You look well,” she says, because it’s expected, not because she believes it or even knows if it’s true. “Prompto.”

He looks down at his feet, hands holding one another and smiles the thinnest smile, which jolts her somewhat, because that’s hers. That’s hers, something else he stole, like a tiny mouse sneaking crumbs away in the pantry, something he learned by watching it forever aimed at him.

“Thanks, mum.”

It hurts her somewhere she can’t quite pinpoint, and she wants him gone already, wants him to stop stomping his feet all over her memories and the bruised remnants of her dignity. She wants him gone and her husband dead, and she looks out the window instead, wishing the ocean itself would raise and swallow the blasted, filthy monstrosity of a city whole.

“I’m glad,” she says, though she’s clearly not, “that you survived.”


	35. prompto gets hurt trying to save his camera, gladio and ignis are... not exactly thrilled

“It’s just a camera, Prompto,” Gladio growled, sitting Prompto in his lap and holding him tightly in place, while Ignis fussed with his ankle.

“Dude,” Prompto snorted, and looked over his shoulder, “you did  _not_ just say tha _-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeek!_ ” His shriek almost covered up the sick crunch of bone as Ignis reset his ankle, and even Gladio winced a little. “Fuck, that hurt.”

“Apologies,” Ignis murmured, in that tone of his that let Prompto know he was apologizing for the pain but not for causing it, which was such an Ignis thing to do it made him want to kiss him.

And then Ignis cracked the potion on his ankle and the cool sparks of magic splashed on his leg, cool soothing healing spreading all over his body and taking away the wariness with them. And Prompto  _really_ wanted to kiss him.

“…okay, fine,” Prompto sighed, ducking his head a little. “Let me have it, I deserve it. I should have seen the cliff.”

“A  _camera_ ,” Gladio grumped under his breath, and then tilted his head forward, forehead pressing on Prompto’s shoulder as he wrapped his arms around him more as a hug and less like a restraint. “Fuck.”

Ignis stared down at Prompto for a moment, lips pursed dangerously, before he sighed.

“You are impossible,” he muttered and then leaned in to press his lips against Prompto’s. “Utterly impossible.”

Prompto placed one hand over one of Gladio’s and reached with the other to hold Ignis’ wrist, and grinned the wryest grin he could.

“I love you too.”


	36. Drautos comes to the terrible realization he doesn't hate Noct after all

“What would you like?” Noctis asks him, three days before he’s set to depart on his royal pilgrimage to meet his bride in Altissia.

Of course, Titus just came back from the mission that ensued that does not happen, at all, but Noctis doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know many things, the young prince: he doesn’t know when to speak up for himself, how to be proper angry without immediately regretting everything he says. He doesn’t know how to hate: a man and a concept and a footnote in history, enough to reshape the world with fire and steel if necessary.

He’s an ignorant, sheltered brat, the Crown Prince, and Titus should hate him for it.

He doesn’t, it’s the thing. He’s been trying twenty years, and come up empty-handed, every time. It’s the one thing he has failed, in nearly thirty years of service to the Crown and the Empire. He’s killed whoever he’s been told to kill. He’s burned whatever he’s been told to burn. No sacrifice too strenuous, no atrocity too horrid. He serves a King and then an Emperor and then a King again, only not really and mostly in-between. He’s good at that, the in-between. The uncomfortable bits scattered around the kind of glorious legacy reserved for the Lucis Caelum, chosen of Bahamut and the Crystal. The discarded. The collateral. He’s good at that and all those things Clarus would call dishonorable and Cor treacherous, their blind love for Regis leaving them incapable of realizing exactly what a soft-spoken monster he really is. They all are, the Kings of the Crystal, arrogant enough to think they get to decide what the greater good is, or who dies for its sake. Titus hates them all, in concept and in person, since the day he sat on the dirt and watched the King stand by as his home was torn asunder by the Empire.

“It doesn’t matter,” the King had said, bland and callous and regal, none of which had made the gaping hole in Titus’ soul stop festering one bit, “Insomnia will endure.”

Regis was different, once. Regis was young and reckless and determined to win without casualties, and once upon a time, Titus had been willing to like him. And then Regis was made King, and he acted like a King should. Could. Would. The day Regis started talking about unfortunate sacrifices, Titus dug out the scrap of paper he’d kept buried in a weapons cache forty miles out of in Leide, beneath a bandersnatch’s lair, and then drove non-stop past Lestallum and into Paddra, before he was sufficiently sure no one would even know where to begin tracing the call before he dialed the number. 

He told Regis he’d had a family emergency when he returned, metal plating settled under his skin, and felt vindicated when the King didn’t comment further on it.

Sometimes, when he’s had perhaps a beer too many, Titus wonders if perhaps the reason he’s been thus far unable to hate Noctis like he hates his father and he loathed his grandfather, is because Noctis, like Regis before he went bad, is a Prince. Titus supposes that means he’s destined to never hate Noctis, if nothing else because  _Noctis will never be King_.

Of course, the boy knows nothing of that, or what goes on in Titus head, or the heartbreak in his future, or any fucking thing at all, really, so when Titus stares at him, all he does is shrug.

“I mean,” he says, hunched over and awkward, not looking at Titus’ face. “I figure… you spend all your time here or fighting out there, so maybe there’s something I could get you. You know, from outside the Wall.” He lets the words out quickly, awkwardly, like he’s still halfway convinced it’s a bad idea to say the words at all. “…maybe something from your hometown?”

Titus waits and waits and waits, for the flare of livid fury to manifest itself. He’s braced and ready to force the armor back under his skin, one sharp scale of reinforced cursed metal at the time, if necessary. 

It doesn’t come.

_It doesn’t come._

“You’re not going on a leisure trip,” Titus points out, rather than examine the ball of thorns caught in his throat. He’s gotten rather good at ignoring it, over the years.

Noctis shrugs and he looks young and small, and all it’d really take would be three seconds and Titus’ will, and he’d  _never_ be King. But he’s never going to be King, anyway, Titus has made sure of it already, and maybe this way the boy will get a running start. In three days times he will have no Ring and no Crystal and no Throne, and if he’s smart, he’ll take that running start and never look back.

Titus likes him, despite it all, so he does hope he will.

He’s convinced the King to keep the Ring rather than let Noctis take it with him, after all. He’s sure he’ll be able to convince the Emperor the Prince died in the wilderness, when the time comes. He’s convincing, that way.

“I know,” Noctis says, shrugging. “I  _know_. Just. If it’s on the way, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

Titus smiles, sincerely.

“Just come back in one piece, how about that?”


	37. Prompto & the Zu

Prompto caught sight of it first. Not entirely unsurprising, considering he was looking around nervously, while everyone was stuck staring at the eggs the side of small cars neatly piled up in the nest. But still.

Prompto saw it first.

It made the words slam into his throat, like an MT kick to the ribs, only higher, pushing out all the air in his lungs and leaving him gasping like a fish out of water. It was sweeping around and heading for Noctis and none of them saw it and the next thing Prompto knew he was tackling the Prince to the ground, grabbing his ankles and pulling them from under him, because he remembered, in a fit of ridiculousness, Cor’s voice explaining this was the gentlest way to knock someone down from the angle he was at. It’d do.

Thankfully Ignis saw it next, just in the nick of time, as he swooped in and slammed Noctis’ face into the ground to keep him down. Prompto hoped it only  _looked_ that way. But hey, at least no one got torn to pieces by the digivolved version of the stupid bird Dino had made them sneak around looking for gemstones, way back when. The final pokemon evolution. Level 99. Over 9000.

“We’re all gonna die,” Prompto said somewhat tonelessly, as it swoop around with a loud cry.

“More fighting,” Gladio said, shoving him forward, towards the battle, with a cocky grin and a little wink, “less existential dread.”

Prompto laughed and maybe cried a little and then he tried to remember how many bazooka shots he still had left.

“Right.”

It was anything but, really, but at this point he was sort of used to it.

His ankles hurt. He supposed they’d have to wait a little longer.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out on [DW](https://notavodkashot.dreamwidth.org/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/notavodkashot), if you'd like.


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